These words belong to the man who threw his shoe at Bush

This is one of the few threads that does a magnificent job at showing the average ATS member mentality. If you watch anything on MSM about this
event, they portray this man as a terrorist, or a trouble maker, or just flat out a bad guy, even after his story is told. But the members on here
seem to revere this man for standing up for what he believes in, something that seems very much frowned upon in today's society.
This man, IMHO, is the definition of a true patriot for his country. It's quite sad in a part of the world most of us view as uneducated and poor, a
man has more guts to act upon his beliefs than we the free. :

Well, I admire the shoe thrower but I got to say this to the Obama haters in this thread. Obama was the only leading politician that voiced his
opposition to the illegal invasion that some say have cost 1 million civilian lives as well as 1000's US troops dead and injured... Impeach Bush!

Saddam's forces were fare more brutal to the Iraq people than U.S. forces ever where, and this is well recorded. Saddam was never going to just give
up power, this situation was inevitable, and the U.S. stuck around and helped Iraq rebuild, and that should be respected, and from my understanding,
most of the people of Iraq do respect the U.S. for what they have done.

Iraq went through some hard years after the invasion, but Iraq is healing, and currently has more potential than any of the other Islamic countries.
They just need to keep Syria and Iran from constantly interfering.

We see even in Gulf states they do not have the resources of Iraq. Now we are importing [bottled] water from Saudi Arabia, which doesn’t have
any rivers. So Iraq has a lot of potential. Everyone understands that, and politically Iraq is very energetic. People are coming out from decades of
dictatorship, and although we have now somehow the liberties that we have, we don’t always use it correctly. But it’s freedom, it’s liberty, and
… it’s much better than despotism, than any kind of oppression.

Originally posted by Shades1035
Well, I admire the shoe thrower but I got to say this to the Obama haters in this thread. Obama was the only leading politician that voiced his
opposition to the illegal invasion that some say have cost 1 million civilian lives as well as 1000's US troops dead and injured... Impeach Bush!

How about the troop surge Obama wants in Afghanastan? How many civilians and US troops will that kill?

You are tired of our government then stop belly aching and take action. Do something about it. Don't hide in a corner cheering on those who have a
set.

Put up or shut up. Honestly I am getting sick and tired of people on ATS crying "mommy mommy the guberment is bad". I see thread after thread about
others standing up and all you guys do is blog about how great that person is.

I'm calling you all out. Do something about the situation you are in or shut the hell up.

And what exactly have you done, or are you all talk like the rest of us?

I haven't had time to look at all the posts since the last time I was in here on Friday.

I want to say thanks to all those who did reply. Whether you agree with me or not isn't what matters. It's HOW you voice your dissenting opinion
that does.

Some strongly disagree with this mans actions and I fully understand why.

The only thing I have to say it try to put yourself in his shoes (no pun intended

). As HE sees it his country was invaded by a foreign occupier.
He's seen his countrymen lying dead in the streets and the man responsible for the death and destruction is standing right in front of him.

Throwing his shoe was probably not the least offensive thing he could have done, but it also wasn't the worst.

If I saw my neighbors lying dead in the street and the leader responsible for their deaths was standing in front of me, I'd have a REALLY hard time
keeping my composure.

I really don't know if he's been tortured or not. But I do know that he's not the only person who has said that Iraq may not have been perfect
before, but what they have to deal with now is unbearable.

Also, some people infer that he's making this all up about why he threw his shoe. I'd like to ask if you have any other alternative reason as to
what would bring a person to do such a thing.

Once again, thanks for all your replies and when I have more time I will try to respond to posters on an individual basis.

What I was complaining about was the fact that the thread had received about 12 flags but, at the time, only one left a response.

So obviously people were reading the thread (contrary to what your portraying), they just weren't leaving replies and I wanted to know what people
thought about it beyond it being worthy of a flag.

I don't care about the number of flags or even the number of responses. I do, however, care that people thought the topic interesting but didn't
want to leave their opinions as to why. I was encouraging discussion and, interestingly enough, a few minutes after I left that post, being the
"fool" that I am, people started leaving responses.

This man deserved to be locked away for a period of time. He knew what he was doing and knew what the consequences were for doing that action. I
believe that some of you people are living in a dream land. Some of you believe that this man should have been left alone after assaulting a US
president. The majority of the greatness in making as decision like this would be having the ability to carry out the action and accept the
consequences that come along with that action. The action by it's self takes no courage, only aiming which was obviously off.

No matter what the situation is, we cannot set a standard of thinking its alright to assault a US president.

As for Obama, people who claim that he made a promise to bring all of the troops home are mistaken. Possibly, if taken out of context somebody could
believe this. The ones who listened to what Obama actually stated know that even before he got elected hes position was that he would bring the
troops home in a manner that was safe. The US has already pulled out of the major Iraqi cities so the troop numbers in Iraq should be going down
soon. He is doing exactly what he stated; unless of course you were misinformed on what he said.

I think what people fail to state about the whole matter is that the way things are looking, Iraq is going to much better country 20 - 30 years from
now. With that being said I don't want anybody to get the wrong impression and think that I am just writing off how tragic this has been. Every
life is important and every life lost is worthy of being noted.

I love the hypocrisy of the shoe thrower to completely gloss over how Saddam ruled, and to somehow try to characterize Iraq as a religiously open
place. The very things he accused the US troops of doing, Saddam ruled by the same measures. Muslims fight and kill other Muslims in Iraq due to an
argument about who should have ruled after Mohammed died. He characterizations are so hypocritical it's absurd.

Sure Obama did but then what did he do ? He's sending our young people to Afghanistan to die .
When will he enact the draft ?
I have a 19 yr old grandson that could be sent to that God forsaken country and it'll be over my dead body that he will have to step over to go
there.

Bush was so clueless. He says that the guy wanted to bring attention to himself. I watched the video after the guy threw the shoe. George w Bush is
horrible at explaining things. He just wanted to make it seem like it was the guys personal problem and nothing to do with him.
I think it was harsh what punishment he got. He should have just been asked to leave. I do not adovcate voilence in anyway but this did not harm
anyone. The intent was not too harm George Bush but to get his attention and let him know that Bush done something wrong. www.youtube.com...
link to the video since the embed did not work.

This guy is no hero, he is a coward and a liar. Everything he says in these quotes is nothing but pure lies. The only thing this thread attempts to
do is encourage people to cling to lies and delusions, and to spread propaganda.

If I saw my neighbors lying dead in the street and the leader responsible for their deaths was standing in front of me, I'd have a REALLY hard
time keeping my composure.

Yeah, well then he should have thrown his shoe at the local Muslim clergy sending suicide bombers out into the local markets to kill innocents. He
should have tried to throw his shoe at the President of Iran and the President of Syria, because both nation have been pushing for a religious based
war by blowing up innocent people.

Most of the people killed in Iraq have been killed by the religious nut cases who think it is good to blow oneself up killing innocent people.

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